Dead of Summer Review: The Dharma Bums (Season 1 Episode 6)
Things on Dead of Summer are FINALLY kicking into high gear. “The Dharma Bums” is the best episode yet, and it gives us some real movement on the larger mystery of what the hell is going on at Camp Stillwater.
But almost more important than that: “The Dharma Bums” is the first installment to actually make me care about these characters, even a little bit. Sure, I liked Cricket, Blair, and Drew before, but I hardly knew them. Now, I’m attached to more than a few of the campers.
And Deb! Poor Deb. Her backstory, as revealed in “The Dharma Bums,” is so tragic.
We see Deb, back in the ’70s, having the summer of her life with her cute boyfriend Keith at Camp Stillwater. Keith, a poet, goes off to travel the world and write, while Deb, who initially wants to “save the world,” ends up a high-powered Harvard lawyer in a bigwig law firm.
I’m gonna stop right there. That’s the only part of Deb’s backstory that rubs me the wrong way a bit. The transition from “I want to save the world!” to “I’m going to get engaged to this handsome corporate lawyer-type and become a workaholic buttoned-up lawyer myself!” is way, way too abrupt. I don’t buy it.
Anyway! Present Deb, in the aftermath of Cricket’s tragic and shocking death, is struggling, as are the other counselors (particularly Blair). Her old love Keith conveniently shows up and is clearly a ghost. I mean, honestly–was anybody surprised by that “Keith is dead” reveal in the third act? I don’t think so.
I’m not saying that the obviousness of this twist lessens the emotional impact. It actually doesn’t at all (mostly thanks to Elizabeth Mitchell’s stellar performance). It’s just that they go a bit too heavy with all the hints that Keith is actually a ghost.
Several, just off the top of my head:
- He’s wearing the same outfit when he shows up at camp in 1989 that he is wearing when Deb sees him in hear pre-camp, pre-overdose flashback.
- He says “I can’t stay, I have to leave tonight.” Lines like that are standard ghost talk. (Alright, maybe I watch a little too much TV…)
- Keith also says the words “unfinished business.” COME. ON.
- Deb is super, over-the-top emotional when she first sees him in 1989.
- Basically their entire first present-day conversation. It’s just super ghost-y.
Regardless of whether the twist is particularly twisty, the emotional gut-punch of flashback Deb going to see Keith (despite being married to Corporate Lawyer Dude whose name I forget completely) only to find him dead of an apparent heroin overdose is completely wrenching. It also serves as a great catalyst for Deb to leave her husband and legal practice and go back to the camp, eventually buying and reopening it.
I mean, realistically, it’s a terrible idea to torch your whole life, but I do buy that Keith’s death is a tragic enough event to have driven Deb to make these objectively bad life choices.
In the present, Deb has sex with Ghost Keith, and it’s a little bit unclear whether or not she realized he was a ghost right from the beginning. She knew that he was dead. She saw him dead, prior to buying the camp. She apparently even acquired his ashes, which she brings with her in the flashback, right before buying Camp Stillwater.
In retrospect, her reaction to seeing him in the apparent flesh is very much like what you’d expect when someone is magically seeing a long-dead love. But she’s not shocked or scared or weirded out that this dead dude is in her camp. She’s just happy about it. Deb’s a little off her rocker.
In the end, Keith’s appearance serves as a sort of spirit guide. I thought for a minute he might be a malevolent presence (as the other apparitions have been) but the last scene between the two makes clear that he’s there to encourage Deb and lift her up. It’s very sweet and romantic and sad, but it gets the job done–Deb snaps back to it and takes charge of the camp again.
Meanwhile, the teens get to work on summoning Cricket’s spirit, intending to find out whether her death was an accident or if it has to do with the larger malevolence happening around camp. As we, the audience, already knew from seeing Cricket get pushed into that bear trap o’ death in the last episode, it’s definitely the latter.
I completely, unabashedly love how cheesy and ridiculous the entire seance sequence is. Amy’s possession, first by Cricket, then by Holyoke, then by what is probably the demon they’re dealing with. Blair’s super random (but helpful!) ability to perform a quickie exorcism in Spanish. Jessie’s hand possession (nice Evil Dead callback!). All of it.
It is so ’80s campy horror. It is wonderful. I equally love the fact that each of the teens are fully on board with the fact that supernatural weirdness is happening.
My pet peeve in horror is when characters continue denying supernatural events far past when any other explanation conceivably makes sense. This show nicely avoids that. What goes down during the seance finally makes a believer out of each of them, even the cynical Jessie.
The possession also confirms a lot of what I (and most of the other viewers) already suspected: Amy is the “key” (or the window, more specifically). The details are still vague and unclear, but I’m guessing that Amy has been made the conduit to allow the demon to rise and come to camp to wreak havoc, via that ritual the satanists performed earlier in the season.
Holyoke, for whatever reason, despite once leading the satanists while alive, appears to have decided (in death) that summoning the demon is NOT a good idea. Hence his attempts to stab Amy while possessing her, and to have Joel kill Amy during”How to Stay Alive in the Woods.” Just a guess.
That Holyoke isn’t a bad guy after all is likely to be the next “twist.” You heard it here, folks. If it goes that way, I am most interested in finding out what caused Holyoke’s change of heart.
Deputy Garrett is also starting to be a little bit useful, thanks to Jessie.
She immediately finds him after the seance craziness and clues him in on what’s going in. To Sykes’ credit, he doesn’t start blubbering about there being no such thing as demons, as I expected him to. He actually listens to Jessie and the two uncover even more pertinent information.
They jointly realize that the sites where bodies were found mark the points on the demonic symbol Jessie sketched while her hand was possessed. They go to one spot and realize that whatever body was there (the now-definitely dead Blotter’s head, as it turns out) has recently been moved because–PLOT TWIST!–some mysterious third-party is working with the satanists, helping them out by moving bodies. And the satanists don’t even know who it is.
This is actually a really interesting turn because I have no theories about who the mysterious helper could be. At first, it appeared to be Deb, but Keith’s visit clears most of the Deb suspicion. Who could the mysterious masked figure be? And who will be the fourth victim? I’m so intrigued.
Stray thoughts:
- Two of the three creators of this show (Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis) were writers on Lost, so I’m about 95% sure that including The Dharma Bums, of all books, is a clear reference to Lost‘s Dharma Initiative.
- I wonder if Keith’s overdose and obsession with Camp Stillwater is somehow related to the demonic freakery going on there. Alternatively, he may just have been a troubled, drug-addicted writer. Wouldn’t be the first.
- The post-credits “Behind the Scenes” segment reveals that one of the creepy satanist masks pops up during the opening ’70s party that Deb and Keith are at. Love small details like that!
- Garrett, I still don’t care about you or your dead Sheriff dad. Sorry, man.
- Elizabeth Mitchell is SO BEYOND GORGEOUS. Like, she always is, but during “The Dharma Bums” specifically.
- If Deb’s ending this season is anything other than her valiantly sacrificing herself to save the kids and Ghost Deb riding off into the afterlife with Ghost Keith, I WILL RIOT.
What did you think of this episode of Dead of Summer? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Dead of Summer airs Tuesday at 9/8c on Freeform.
Caralynn Lippo
Caralynn is a freelance writer and editor, but most importantly, she is a diehard TV addict. A few of her current favorites are Mr. Robot, You're the Worst, iZombie, and The Vampire Diaries. She also writes about TV for Romper, The TV Junkies, and TV Fanatic.